> In addition, what is the result of 3 mile island? The word disaster comes with a lot of baggage that I would debate doesn't apply, it was an accident without any fatalities.
In the Harrisburg accident, the core had a melt-down, and molten uranium was forming layers at the bottom of the vessel. Water had been being cracked into oxygen and hydrogen by the intense heat. This process was stopped little time before the vessel would have blown up from overpressure. It would also have been possible that the layering of Uranium in the vessel would have become super-critical with the result of the reactor literally exploding. And this would definitively have had consequences comparable to Chernobyl.
This is stuff which isn't well-known outside of expert circles. During my studies, I read about it in an article in a journal of the nuclear power industry... this must have been between 1991 and 1995, I think.
Another huge problem which Fukoshima exposed is that not only the active reactor core must be subject to cooling at all times, in order to be safe, but also cooling basins for spent fuel with remaining radioactivity. And they should also be inside safe containments (that is, protected from airplane crashes, and so on). I think that no reactor built in the West before 2009 has adequate protections against that type of problem.
And to add, in France there is at least one reactor which is built directly at the shore of the Atlantic. It is probably not safe against major Tsunamis.
The general problem is that nuclear is a very high risk, low probability technology. Protecting against that risk costs lots of money, which makes it uncompetitive. The financial pressures in corporations lead again and again to the result that safety measures are skipped. And in addition, it is inhumanely hard to predict and plan to cope with all possible risks.
My understand is that with the Fukushima Daiichi incident, we knew this was a possibility. Managers thought they could manage the risk, because there was a likelihood that it would not flood during their watch. I don't know how organize to get around that behavior though
In the Harrisburg accident, the core had a melt-down, and molten uranium was forming layers at the bottom of the vessel. Water had been being cracked into oxygen and hydrogen by the intense heat. This process was stopped little time before the vessel would have blown up from overpressure. It would also have been possible that the layering of Uranium in the vessel would have become super-critical with the result of the reactor literally exploding. And this would definitively have had consequences comparable to Chernobyl.
This is stuff which isn't well-known outside of expert circles. During my studies, I read about it in an article in a journal of the nuclear power industry... this must have been between 1991 and 1995, I think.
Another huge problem which Fukoshima exposed is that not only the active reactor core must be subject to cooling at all times, in order to be safe, but also cooling basins for spent fuel with remaining radioactivity. And they should also be inside safe containments (that is, protected from airplane crashes, and so on). I think that no reactor built in the West before 2009 has adequate protections against that type of problem.
And to add, in France there is at least one reactor which is built directly at the shore of the Atlantic. It is probably not safe against major Tsunamis.
The general problem is that nuclear is a very high risk, low probability technology. Protecting against that risk costs lots of money, which makes it uncompetitive. The financial pressures in corporations lead again and again to the result that safety measures are skipped. And in addition, it is inhumanely hard to predict and plan to cope with all possible risks.